Val McDermid: Common Murder

Three nights later, Lindsay stood in the press hall in Cologne watching the massive presses flickering her image past her eyes at hundreds of copies a minute. Gunter approached, clutching a handful of early copies from the run and an opened bottle of champagne. He thrust a magazine at Lindsay, who stared disbelievingly at the cover. Her own picture was superimposed on a wide-angled shot of the base at Brownlow Common with the peace camp in the foreground. A slow smile spread across her face, and she took a long, choking swig from the offered bottle of champagne. “We did it,” she almost crowed. “We beat the bastards.”

Excerpts from the Daily Clarion, 11 May 198-.

MISSILES TO GO

The Pentagon announced last night that the phased withdrawal of cruise missiles from Brownlow Common will begin in November…

DOUBLE TRAGEDY FOR SPY MURDER FAMILY

The man at the centre of a German magazine’s revelations about Russian spies at American bases in the UK died in a freak road accident last night.

His death was the second tragedy within two months for his family. His father, solicitor Rupert Crab tree, was brutally murdered eight weeks ago.

Simon Crabtree, who had been officially cleared by British security forces of any involvement in espionage, died instantly when his motorbike skidded on a sharp bend and ploughed into the back of a tractor.

Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community. After reading English at Oxford, she became an award-winning journalist and active trade unionist, ending up as Northern Bureau Chief of a national newspaper and Chair of the Union ’s Equality Council. She now writes full-time and lives in the north of England with her partner and four cats.